I'm a paid subscriber to the MyFico score monitor thing here...and it's great for keeping an eye on my actual scores, simulator tools, etc. And I'm also signed on to the free Vantage score sites like Credit Karma, and the Capital One Creditwise thing.
I bought a new car earlier this evening. Can you guess from which service(s) I got email alerts that someone had accessed my credit file within seconds (not minutes, not hours - seconds) pulling my file? I can give you a hint. They're both free services. I still have not received one alert from MyFico.
I had an issue last year with a bogus collection being pinned to my file, which I was able to have removed, thanks in parto to getting instant notification. Again - that alert came from Credit Karma. I know their scores are useless in the real world - but for free, those sites have definite value.
